


Wilson (Expensive Mistakes)

by Mangerine



Category: World Trigger (Anime & Manga)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:14:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22090912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangerine/pseuds/Mangerine
Summary: Gifts are the kisses you buy - in which case Tachikawa hasn't kissed his boyfriend once in the three years they've been dating, and childhood friend Tsukimi Ren wants to know why.
Relationships: Tachikawa Kei/Jin Yuuichi
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31





	Wilson (Expensive Mistakes)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you ally cancelleria for betaing this fic in 45 minutes with a sore throat. Mob Psycho fans, go check her out. Mob Psycho Indifferents, go leave kudos anyway.

“Jin,” Konami said from the entrance of his room, displeasure clear and boundless as the sky out the window, “do you really live like this?”

Konami’s glare smoulders first the cartons of bonchi, then scorches the bare walls, before igniting his unmade bed and its white sheets, now oddly pink and splotched from years of laundry mishaps.

“It’s minimalist,” Jin shot her a winning smile which went ignored.

He knew hours of watching the Home and Living channel was bound to have repercussions eventually, he just wished he wasn’t always the first collateral victim of Konami’s seasonal hobbies. All the same, he was deeply unwilling to ruin a sunny day with the girl’s stormy temper.

“I like it this way.” Jin sighed.

“It’s a jail cell,” Konami retorted, an evaluating squint levelled at the windowsill by his bed. “Where’s the little cactus Tachikawa got you? That would brighten things up a little. Don’t tell me you killed it already-”.

“The what? What does Tachikawa-san have to do with this?”

“The…” Konami trailed off, before abruptly turning and stomping down the hall.

⨯

“I knew it, I just _knew_ none of those gifts made it to Jin!” Tsukimi vented, any triumph at being proven right eclipsed by her despair.

Diving into the sanctuary of the Operator's soundproof little storage-converted-room, Tsukimi let the door click shut behind her before inhaling and screeching like a harpy through her teeth.

The room is crowded, but no one pays her outburst any mind. The exclusive little saferoom continued its frenetic pace, half the operators releasing documents from their ring folders, filling them in before clicking them back into place, the other half leaning into their screen, typing reports and timetables and whatever else their team required.

Tsukimi kicked her heels off and slumped into an empty seat. The operators around her only rubbed her shoulders in comfort, while their spare hand kept typing at their reports.

This job took enough out of her as it was. Always “Operators are to remain calm at all times,” and “Operators have to maintain order, yes, including when your teammate is being liquefied into whatever prototype trion soldier Aftokrator sent here for a test spin.”

In a perfect world, she could have chosen her childhood friend, and had an internship that paid her well enough to afford her a monthly subscription to a premium _wagashi_ giftbox. But it was a dog’s existence, and she had the world’s most unrelentingly troublesome childhood friend, who couldn’t be trusted to hand a gift to his boyfriend even after she’d guided him through the whole process, choosing it and wrapping it.

Well, at least this month’s _wagashi_ had sakura mochi for sure; she’d go through hell if she had enough sweets.

Since Management would rather risk coup d'etat than offer a pay raise, they were given 78 square feet of peace instead, a space where they could loosen their ties and their death grips on their computer mice between duty.

Strong wifi and ample outlet plugs, a given - Additionally, a complete vanity, and beanbags to rest on. A helpful little infographic on eye exercises and protecting your spine were stuck on the walls with cheerful little illustrations, and by the main work desk that stretched across the room, a small drinks trolley, stocked to brim with caffeine and sugary 3-in-1s.

No alcohol, unfortunately. Company regulations.

Kunichika looked chipper despite slogging through her second of nine pending duty reports for Tachikawa squad. It didn't help for both her group members to regularly play hooky and take on more patrol duties for kicks and giggles. Nor was it a pleasant perk of the job to deal with their trust fund burden.

“Maybe Jin-san just stuffed them into his closet?” Kunichika offered, showing off her parallel processing skills by finishing her reports while listening to music with one headphone in, and now attempting to gossip above it all. “He's a private guy,”

“Unlikely, Konami-chan says Jin’s only out of the closet because he's got too many skeletons in there to fit himself in,”

“Couldn't fit any clothes in there too,” Usami laughs, coding attack simulations for eight marmods simultaneously and intending very much to join the gossip circle. “He's only got three outfits on rotation, I've counted.”

“So that's what those parcels Tachikawa-san sneaks off to buy every expedition are,” Kaho concluded, straightening her documents against the table in a loud thump. “Kazama-san owes me dinner; he bet on him importing in Neighbourhood items for those weird UFO citizen-journalists that camp out near base.”

Ever diligent, she was the only one at the table who thought it proper to finish work _before_ gossiping. She walked over to the industrial standard hole puncher, and in a feat of incredible strength, punched through the dictionary-thick wad in one go.

“Kei’s not that smart,” Tsukimi sighed.

“But I am,” Kaho smiled. With biceps of pure titanium and a heart of gold, she went on, “Sounds like you need some help, Tsukimi-san.”

The locomotion of frenzy in the room had slowed down perceptibly enough to assume she had the attention of all in the small room. Tsukimi straightened up and asked:

“How long can you make your team dance so Tachikawa can get the goods to Jin without his side effect noticing?”

“A week,” Kaho offered, a serene smile on her face and a plan ticking in her mind. “I owe Tachikawa-san for being a cover anyway.”

“You were a mafia boss in your past life, Kaho-chan,”

“My past life?” Kaho joked.

“As long as you need if we can keep buying manga with your debit card. Kageura squad won’t move an inch from our operations room,Tsukimi-san,” Nire called from the Pretty Cure Limited Edition body-size beanbag she won in an online auction, truly embodying why her parents didn't let her have a card in the first place.

“Arashiyama squad has PR this whole week, so we're in.” Ayatsuji said, more into her cup of hot cocoa than to Tsukimi.

“You already know Tamakoma is in,” Usami said, “and btw, sakura pink is the way to go for marmods. I'm uploading the code for it to the cloud.”

“Avoiding Jin-san for a week?” Sayoko laughed through video call, “Let me RSVP on behalf of Nasu Squad,”

Within fifteen minutes, each operator had disseminated copies of timetables, colour coded for Tachikawa and Jin; moreso the former since no one really knew where Jin was most of the time.

The operation was clear: Play a week-long game of keepaway with Jin’s side effect, and help Tachikawa, for the first time in three years, get his boyfriend something nice.

⨯

Gifts! The kiss you can buy!

$29.60 tax included, 10% off if you have a coupon! Which you of course don’t, because you just saw it and thought about him again —

your wallet’s out and that little hamster is running rounds in your brain, generating your excuse to yourself again.

_just thought of you_

_Thought you’d like this-_

_Saw you staring at it for weeks_

_(Just wanted to see you smile till your dimples showed)_

The saleslady comes with her “Can I help you?” and no, she can’t. And really no one can. Not Tsukimi, not Kunichika, not Konami, and not your useless bachelor of a mentor. But you’re doing this and you’re doing it right.

_He likes blue, but yellow complements him. Black?_

_The left one is uglycute, but the right one is weirdcute, which was it he liked again?_

_Do you present it? Leave it at his window?_

_Plan a dinner, the present as the finale. The preview?_

_Any point to wrapping it?_

You pity Pavlov’s dog from the next cage over.

The bell rings, the mutt drools. Something comes into focus of your optic nerves, bypasses your brain, takes a shortcut through your stupid little heart, and right into the chain of muscles of your hand that work in tandem to get your wallet out the back pocket.

But the small thrill keeps you going.

Because he was busy and the keychain (in the scenario you end up giving it to him) he’d carry (should he accept it) wouldn’t just be a keychain, it’d just be the two dollar seventy-one cent thought that you’d thought of him, and maybe that’d be worth something more, though you doubt it.

Like a reminder. Like comfort. Something like _I’m thinking of you._

(Something like I love-)

Last row in the bus you’re both alone, driving so fast forward you think you're flying closer to the man at the wheel somehow. Maybe the motion sickness is setting in from waiting for this teenage heat to leave. You’ve been stuck in the exponential incline of stupidity that never quite plateaus. Just racking up receipts and hopelessness like bacteria in a petri dish, that 2.71828 hop skip jump and you can live with it.

You hate it.

Still it is true to say you can still live with it. You can’t alight now and leave the bus driver alone. You like it better even when he’s taking you for a ride, you like it better than alighting now and watching him drive away. If you were any smarter, if you were any less stubborn, if you could get your shit together, it could be anyone but him. 

So it’s candy-heart daydreams you sneak in through the vegetables of the work day. The wrong side of paradise, all empty calories of him smiling at you, delighted surprise in his eyes, a figment of intimacy, a hologram of presence.

The running engine is charring your thighs from under the seats, the sun is setting and burning you through the window. Sometime soon this sugary lie has to melt.

The petri dish in decay.

Another gift is stuffed into your closet to collect dust. Another pot is boiling over on the back burner. Another day you’ve concluded that you can’t surprise someone who can see the future anyway.

⨯

Tamakoma Base, the cookie jar – everyone preferred it never empty for long.

Though, Reiji wasn't in the shared area today, his “Guide To High Intensity Interval Training” nestled in the snack basket, his apron neatly hung by the fridge. The base was quiet enough to assume Konami was out and the soft old armchair was devoid of soft snores without an exhausted Kyosuke napping between part-time jobs.

Boss must have had business at HQ too, that would explain why their resident capybara and her ankle-biting handler were gone as well. The last time those two were left unsupervised they nearly didn’t have a base to come home to.

But the lights in Rindo’s office were still on.

Strange, with how much he nagged the branch members on saving electricity. He must have been in a rush to leave.

The morning was cold, the squeaks and creaks of the old base friendly. Jin strolled to the bathroom in his worn slippers, washed up and read his reflection like the morning paper, and seeing that all was good, slipped on his jacket and boots, leaving the cookie jar empty.

“I see him,” Azuma says, ducking behind the parapet once the familiar blue jacket entered his scope.

“ETA?”

“500m or so from the west entrance - I’d give him a little under ten minutes,” Azuma said, chancing a peek again.

“Thank you, Azuma-san” Sawamura whispered back.

Management was having a meeting in the adjacent room; she wouldn’t have answers for off-duty agents on the roof with snipers pointed at their own agents if they caught her here.

“Will you ever explain what this is for?” Azuma asked, triggering off out of sight, slipping back into the base.

“It’s for me, and the favour you owe me for you-know-what, from you-know-when,” Sawamura answered, “so consider that paid off, and thank you very much.”

In one swift motion, Sawamura tabbed the dot that approached the base from the west entrance, and put the operation screen to hibernation, dousing the room, previously illuminated in a digital blue, in darkness.

When Sawamura enters the hallway again, Kunichika sends the affirmative.

“Received, thank you Sawamura-san, we’ll send you the password now.”

Sawamura opened the encrypted file and scanned through it, back to the wall. Clipped sentences suggested it was fudged together in one night, but the information wasn't shoddy; extensive, even.

Some trivia she'd already known, the way he rushed off when the canteen had ramen on the menu and the way he stuffed twice a normal amount of dashimaki in his lunchbox.

Others she'd guessed through five years of service with him, like how he cradled his right elbow often when the weather cooled and smiled sheepishly when she helped bring him his coffee and documents, and told him to take care of himself.

Still, most were privy only to his student,

and apparently, also his student’s operator.

It’s a rabbit hole of tabbed and outlined information in an official Border document, with their standardized font too. Unless she was being scoped with a sniper, it looked perfectly innocuous. But Sawamura sees a ‘lingerie’ tab and presses her back flat onto the wall like a cornered rat.

For the most part, a list of motorcycles, their names and specifications. Dates of motorcycle conventions, local Kendo competitions and pinpoint locations of ramen shops near them.

It’s an impressive guide to Branch Director Shinoda’s heart, well worth breaking a few safety protocols for.

⨯

The teddy bear listened with a therapist’s calm and nodded.

“It’s time,” he said, “to get a grip,”

The thin layer of dust over his longan seed eyes dulls his cheerful visage into a grim, unhappy bear. From where he slouched on the open cabinet door, surrounded by his fellow fallen comrades of trinkets and whatnots and allthats, something seemed even disappointed in his eyes.

(Once, he'd been whining about how a movie date wouldn't work since Jin could see the future anyway, and Tsukimi said,

“You could just ask him to dinner.”

And Tachikawa replied, “You know, rank wars are fine,”

The look Tsukimi gave was exactly that.)

Tachikawa sat on the edge of his bed, facing the ruins of his cheap secondhand cabinet and the consequences of his pisspoor financial decisions.

“It’s time,” The teddy started, with his tired poker face, “to strategize about this.”

“Don’t look at me,” the striped box groaned from behind a pile of wrinkled wrapping paper. “My corners are all dented, since someone shoved me into the back of the pile.”

Tachikawa inhales, deeply. Approximately two years worth of dust.

“Just give up on surprising him. He’ll appreciate the sentiment anyway.” the uglycute doll said, with its grotesquely ruddy cheeks. The pink deformity looked as though it’d stuffed a bowling ball in each cheek, and then got run over by a couple more before being stocked in stores.

“No,”

“You hardhead. He’s a clairvoyant, not a telepath.”

“No,” Tachikawa repeats.

“I volunteer,” A flat box of assorted pralines sings.

“You expired half a year back.”

“Fuck you. Give us away, coward.” the sour milk chocolates spat.

But all Tachikawa did was pick up the disappointed little bear and turn him to face the closet that could not close.

At this rate there wouldn’t be space for much longer, Tachikawa slipped on a jacket only to shrug it off once he stepped out the door. He must have imagined the cold.

⨯

The day has proceeded with each step more wary and slow than the one before; walking through a fog.

Each step mysterious.

Thirty minutes ago, he’d sent Osamu a text and asked if Tamakoma 2 wanted lunch.

Osamu had been texting since.

He checked his phone once briefly, for any updates, then let it sleep in his pocket. There were more pressing matters.

Like why Border, the security center of Mikado City, Japan, was empty right before lunch. On fried food day too. He recalls the empty Tamakoma, and decides coincidences never set anyone at ease.

But nothing about the Border base was the same as their little cookie jar perching on the river. Here the empty halls were icy and no tiles had seen the sun since they were laid to rest in wet concrete. There were no windows in the walls. The quiet here was punishing.

An empty cookie jar was quizzical; an empty mausoleum made you nervous.

He checked his phone again. Nothing.

He wished that no news was good news. He wished that good news stayed as good news. But futures flickered and darkened, beckoned then rotted when you approached. Jin has spent his life in the dark, chasing fireflies.

Therefore, needing restlessly to look for futures. Itching, finding another puzzle piece to fit the events of the week together before they happened.

But sometimes, when the halls were empty and cold just like this, Jin could pretend a life where he, too, was a firefly in the dark like the rest of them. He could pretend he never saw himself crush wings in his hands, separate head from twitching thorax with a flick of nail.

Pinning futures onto velvet displays, all still lit up. The best future for them.

Then in these sometimes of silence he remembers why he hates the quiet. He remembers he plucks wings from the future to lay them out in designs. He remembers every firefly he has killed for everyone else.

One had flown right in front of his eyes, a while ago, just a while ago, and in the cold Jin remembers how tiny it had been, but how bright and warm. It was a soft toy, yes.

A teddy bear, eyes full of careful hope, in the hands of-

-and it had died so quietly in Jin’s hands. Its carcass arranged so far away, from where his design was. Jin couldn't linger to grieve. He has a life of opportunity costs to calculate.

The design was as such - he would win the black trigger, he would protect his town, he would protect his juniors, he would pin down the fireflies so they did not wander to die in the soil like nature intended.

His eyes of careful hope, his hands holding - his own

His eyes full of careful hope.

It had died so quietly, and Jin still waited in the dark for it to fly and glow and warm again.

⨯

“You did what?”

Let the roof fly open, and blow him out to space. He could land in Aftokrator for all he cared. Here in the comfort of his own operation room, on a beautiful Tuesday afternoon, Tachikawa Kei had no friends to be found.

“They solved all your problems,” Izumi waved him off, lounging on the sofa like he didn’t just watch the two operators bulldoze whatever semblance of peace Tachikawa had left in his life.

“Right,” Tachikawa said, reaching for his bag, side stepping Tsukimi and all the gifts she’d hauled from his apartment. For a good silent minute, they simply watched as Tachikawa collected his thoughts, and what seemed to be all his worldly possessions in the room.

“Ok,” Tachikawa announced, zipping up his bag. “-now I’m going to run, and not see any of you ever again. It was nice while it lasted, up until you all took off your sheep clothes and ruined my life.”

“We’re doing because we love you, Tachikawa san,” Kunichika sing-songed, pulling her captain from from the exit. Tsukimi simply sat where she was, tossing a windchime with a snapped wire into an open garbage bag.

“Stop being a drama queen,” Tsukimi scolded, “and pick something out. He should be here in less than ten minutes, and we sold our souls to the devil to get everyone to hide from him, just so you can finally surprise your boyfriend with your first gift in three years,”

Tachikawa blinked.

“My what?”

Tsukimi blinked, training her eyes on how Tachikawa’s eyes rose with panic.

“Ren,” Tachikawa says, his voice blurred and hollow, reminding her of whispers through a tin-can phone, the peak of technology in their childhood.

“Ren, Jin isn’t my boyfriend.”

Someone walks past the operations room, and everyone holds their breath. Footsteps pad by without slowing.

Tsukimi’s eyes widen and then settle with a furious control.

**Question** : “You confessed to him three and half years ago,”

**Answer** : “No, I planned to. It was his mother’s death anniversary.”

**Question** : “You didn’t try again,”

**Answer** : “His mentor died the day before I wanted to, then there was the whole black trigger thing. Then after that, I had an expedition.”

**Question** : “So the- Then why-”

 **Question** : “What about the cactus?”

**Answer** : “Konami said I should do something after trying to kill his junior and rip the black trigger off his dead body,”

**Question** : “Kei, you didn’t tell us about any of this?”

**Answer** : “No, because you’d have gotten half of Border to avoid Jin, just to surprise him!”

There’s a sudden knock at the door, and then silence.

“Tachikawa-san? Is that you?”

Tsukimi watched Kei freeze where he stood. Simple shock. His eyes were wide and his stance clamped like a oyster. But he’d recover, he’d let Jin in, he’d come up with a bullshit excuse, play it off and he’d chew her out later for poking at his affairs. He slowly turned to contemplate the presents, then looked right at her.

That’s when she saw the dizzying fear in his eyes.

“Lock the door,” Tsukimi whispered, grey ash in her voice. “Lock the door please, Kunichika.”

Jin knocks a few more times, before walking away. Still, Tachikawa doesn’t move, only looking at a ratty old bear on the table, exhaustion in his slouch. There is a silent, precise fear in Tsukimi that if she reached out to touch him, her hand would swipe through, and he would disappear in cold mist.

⨯

“It’s all my fault.”

Tsukimi lay her pen and then her head on the table, Kunichika a limp doll beside her, laptop as a pillow.

“Don’t be too rough on yourself,” Ayatsuji said, glancing at the boiling kettle and praying they could have a cup of chamomile on the table before she ran out of comforting words. Times like this she wished she had half the presence her captain did; Arashiyama would know what to say.

“Tachikawa-san isn’t mad at you both, is he?”

Kunichika wobbled over to the Pretty Cure Limited Edition body-size beanbag, and fell upon it as a chaise longue.

“I really wish he was.”

⨯

Either way, all weird flatlined to a new normal. Kunichika certainly recovered spectacularly, or looked it, at least, already tapping away at her laptop.

Izumi never knew what to derive with these emotional mathematics. Things were always weird when it involved Tamakoma to begin with, weirder still when it involved Jin-san.

But ultimately, not as weird as fighting otherdimensional monsters for a bigger weekly allowance.

Izumi realized there was space on the coffee table to rest his legs. The presents were gone like a dream. Only a sole cactus sat on the middle of their table, standing rather proudly despite the lack of sunlight.

“Tachikawa-san and Tsukimi-san took them away an hour earlier.” Kunichika replied, putting an expired praline into her mouth.

She didn’t deign to say any more than that, and Izumi and the new normal both eased in, sleepy and warm.

⨯

They make a strange duo, both in black, carrying trash bags so hefty they had to look around them to navigate. If they looked stupid, as the situation was, no one commented, since no one was present at the edge of the restricted zone, near dinnertime.

Someone’s abandoned backyard makes an inviting ruin to settle in. A large wall is still mostly intact, and where it has broken has been lovingly patched with tall, reedy weeds. If Border patrols passed by, they could avoid being seen and questioned. Tsukimi settled on the old, dusty porch as Tachikawa rips off price tags from the bag of gifts and kindles a small fire.

Tsukimi leans back against a huge empty ceramic plantpot, watching smoke slowly waft from Tachikawa’s hands, through the branches of a half dead tree, then joining the wispy clouds. Residual battle fires from the forbidden zone surely wouldn’t be a rare sight, and in the golden silence of the evening, Tsukimi could almost pretend that it was a normal bonfire in autumn, like the ones Kei and her used to have with their families a lifetime ago.

But then she catches sight of a hideous pink keychain with half its plastic, monstrous face melting, and the sentiment is gone.

Tachikawa lumbered over and sat heavily beside her, bending and rummaging through the one unburnt bag of presents. He pulled out a paper bag and handed it to her.

Two cans of beer, a liter bottle of coke and a bottle of rum. A lemon was nestled in a corner as well.

“Sorry I made you run around for nothing,” Tachikawa says, prodding at the slowly kindling fire with the pole of a broken mop he found lying about the desolate area. Tsukimi knows he wished her stupid plan had worked too. If she hadn't done this, he could have...well, he wouldn't have. He'd loved Jin so long it was classic by now.

“Well, I got you this,” Tsukimi said, handing Tachikawa a heavy grocery bag once the fire was warm and glowing. Inside, Tachikawa found graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows, along with soft drinks and assorted candy.

“Wow, unexpired chocolate. Someone’s sincere.”

“For interfering, yes. And about calling you a coward for giving up.”

“You didn’t call me a coward,”

“I haven’t had anything to drink,” Tsukimi says.

“I never called you that for giving up on Sawamura.” Tachikawa said, once the fire was bright and more than half the gifts had joined the pile. He assembled a smore and bit into it before stretching it over to the fire

“You ate it raw,” Tsukimi said with a face, the way she did when he used to pick up snails (on her request) to move it off pavements after the rain.

“Nothing about any of this,” Tachikawa said, “Needs to be cooked.”

“Perhaps not in praxis, but in principle-”

“Tell me more about this smore principle,” Tachikawa laughs,

“Tell me more about why you didn’t try again after that one time,”

“After Mogami’s funeral -”

Tachikawa looked at the fire with something like longing. Watching your house burning and not struggling, already reminiscing.

“I thought I was crazy for him back then,” Tachikawa whispered,“Then one person died and then it was like I forgot. I didn't know what to say to him, I forgot how to pretend everything was ok. If I told him I loved him back then he would have hated me, I think,"

Tachikawa looks at the burning fire, he's smiling.

"I got onto that expedition ship instead of trying again. Then when I got back I knew I missed my chance.”

Tsukimi watches him pull out an old teddy bear from the remaining bag of gifts. She remembers that one. It was the first gift Tachikawa chose. He propped it up against the bag of marshmallows.

“This is the only one I got for him. The rest were just-”

The fire licks at the smore, and Tachikawa jerks away.

“Kei, you’re one of his oldest friends.”

“I pretended to be. Don't think I treated him like a friend after he made scorpion.” _For me,_ Tachikawa doesn't say, but Tsukimi knows that's why he's smiling. She saw the way Jin looked at him too, she knew what it meant. 

“You think you're lying to him? By loving him?”

“I want to say sorry more than I want to say I love him.” Tachikawa said, the words angry hot and hurting to come out.

He shoves the smore into his mouth with a desperation suggesting that if his mouth weren't full, more sentiment would spurt out, and he’d ruin himself.

A mistake, of course, the whole thing was molten and scalding. But now he had to commit to silence.

The fire was an inviting bath drawn warm. The night a microphone to scream into. Finally, after three years and nearly fifteen of knowing Tachikawa Kei did Tsukimi finally, finally realize -

He'd been trying so long to give up.

“How stupid do I sound now?” Tachikawa said, with his mouth full. She’s reminded of how unattractive self-deprecation looked on her oldest friend.

“Just about as stupid as I did when I cried about Sawamura-san being straight.” She said.

They were still too young to drink then, and Tachikawa had hugged her behind the 7-11, with a packet of riceballs and cheap candy between them. He’d excused himself halfway, and came back with two packs of tissues and a bottle of isotonic drink.

Thinking back, that must have been just after Mogami-san died too. Tachikawa didn’t bring it up then, nor ever again. That night, he let her cry for them both. Tonight, she feels tempted to again.

“Yeah, but I have a reputation,”

“None worth maintaining,” She laughed.

“Anyway, enough about me,” Tachikawa said, pulling out kogetsu to slice at the lemon.

“You told me one sentence, Tachikawa Kei, you still have, like, two years worth to fill me in on-”

“I haven’t had, like, enough to drink,” Tachikawa mimicked, her schoolgirlish manner of speaking making her annoyed enough to shove at him. She’d thought she’d practiced it away trying to impress Sawamura-san, trying to sound ten years older and more serious than she really was.

“...You can stop now, you know,” She said, finally. “Shinoda-san is a good man; he deserves her. You should help her out.”

“You’re a good woman too,” Tachikawa said, stubborn.

Tsukimi tipped back the rest of her drink

“Make me a smore, will you?”

⨯

Interlude: Of Jin and the early Morning

Jin rarely dreamt.

Konami always said that it was because he never slept long enough to. Granted, he did always wake before Mikado did, making his way to the streets to watch the sun and city rise.

It was the most beautiful time of day. The small roads he took to the station were quiet enough to hear the rattle of loose pebbles with every soft scuff of his boots against the pavement, the street lamps still bright, the people still asleep.

The city brightens around a bend. Jin and the sun both slink through the structures, in the slowly stirring silence.

Daily, at this juncture, he would wish that he’d made a cup of coffee before he left, to stave away the yawns. He sat heavy where he always did, on the chilly bench across from the tall clock pole, a friendly round face with dark, rusty arrows for a thick moustache.

His head droops; through his sleepy eyes, he is watching the shadow curtains of the sleeping structures part with the rising sun, leaving the lone silhouette of the clock-conductor against the empty tiles before him.

Jin falls half asleep here daily. There is always a lingering chill in his laced fingers, where the sun has not warmed, but his blood is warm from the walk over. There is a window of equilibrium for twenty minutes daily, where Jin is the same temperature as the world around him.

The slip of time between where dew condensed and trees photosynthesized. The rice in the cooker that is still swimming but not yet soft. It is an embryo of a moment, where Jin did not exist and could not feel, and was still encapsulated, protected for a second from the future and her stories, protected for a moment from being a protector.

As clockwork did, Jin awoke.

The people unloaded from the first train, tumbling out the old train station.

The first of the students would plod by, various sports equipment in hand for morning practice. The salaryfolk with their tireless punctuality, some halcyon , some harrowed, and some, clearly hungover.

Their futures flittered noisily, a thousand birds in a storm - a test, a promotion, a scolding, a punishment, a delicious lunch, a full inbox, a death in the family, a birthday.

For the first thousand, Jin knows where he is - the test will not be so bad, the promotion paltry. The scolding is for the child’s own good, the punishment is just - but then,

The student with a bounce in her step and a homemade lunch (community, emotions, personality) will-

The office lady with the grey expression (community, emotions(?) ) will-

The old Mikado resident (community) will-

The human ( ) will-

will-

-

Finally, after thirty trains have come and left, _______ will stand from where __ was seated and turn ___ back to the sun.

_____ will take a right into a small lane of houses, as he has done for the last five of his nineteen years in Mikado City. He smiles at the dogs that are alert and barking at him, their furry muzzles pressing through the gaps of their gates.

If he is lucky, he remembers himself by the time he reaches Tamakoma HQ, when the sun is high and hot in the sky.

Jin Yuuichi is hungry.

Last night again he has not dreamt and today again the sun is warm, and Jin is too sleepy to think of whether it is a lucky day where he can remember himself. He is too sleepy once again to remember coffee.

It is alright. There are always seats when you are early, and Jin is always early. Today the sun has rolled over and hidden her head under her cloudy quilt. Jin wishes he had that privilege most days. But it is alright. He has a seat, he’ll have a nap.

His seat is taken.

He doesn’t have control over where stray cats sleep or where pigeons roost through the night. But to see Tachikawa Kei, his _________, slumped against the city’s carefully pruned flower bushes, right on his usual spot - it pushes the sleepiness right out of him.

Still, there were futures to be watched, so Jin took a seat beside him and found himself unsleeping. There’s a small plastic bag by his unmoving form, opaque and curious. Tachikawa’s breathing hops at points, and Jin doesn’t dare look inside. Its silhouette was lumpy and strange.

So Jin sat, comfortably watching the ticking clock, the rising sun, the arriving trains, the daily engulf of the futures. The warmth doesn’t wake Tachikawa, nor the slowly brightening city, the crowds,

nor Jin himself.

But today, sitting aside Tachikawa, for the first time he sees the four thousand futures like a rock in the sea.

Even as the sun begins to warm uncomfortably, Jin remembers his name. It is that fleeting surge of strength that tells him to turn and look at just one more with fearful, careful hope.

No futures killed in the dark had ever returned in the sun, Jin knows this as truth. But perhaps he was not as thorough as he had hoped, and this one had waited all these years, half dead near his designs, still glowing, always still waiting. 

A firefly in the morning sun, puny and twitching. Such a strange shape, yet if Jin cups his fingers gently around it, he will see it glowing. It takes his breath away - this mangled, small hope. He missed his chance, he killed his chance, he didn't think he'd see it again, laughing at him, laughing at how bad he's pretending he doesn't want it.

If Jin kills it now, he won't ever see it again. He doesn't ever have to remember this again. It's too late anyway, it's not going to make it through the night. 

Tachikawa shifts in his sleep, and Jin startles, tilting back so quickly and so far that he lurches forward to regain his balance.

“I WUV YOU!” something says from under his palm.

He’d landed on the plastic bag, which crackled as he lifted his heavy hand, revealing a soft snout of a teddy bear.

A very familiar teddy bear.

Jin was caught in a wave of memories, even as Tachikawa stirs beside him, groggy from sleep and alcohol dehydration. He’d seen this teddy bear before, his beady eyes lovingly polished. Jin sees his own rippled reflection in those eyes. Eyes full of careful hope, after all these years, after all this time.

Jin stared at the waking Tachikawa, watching for an answer to surface like a lifebuoy at sea.

Tachikawa, on his part, focused on returning to the land of the living, stretching the ache out his neck, before turning to stare at Jin.

And then the teddy bear in his hands.

They stayed that way, staring at their own expensive mistakes in the light of the sun. If they moved, if they spoke, if they ran, if they reached out -- If they wanted this any longer, if they messed this up worse than they already have, if they kept pretending with each other, turning into stranger and stranger shapes to fit into each other's lives. 

“Morning,” Tachikawa greeted, deciding he was too tired to ask why he fell asleep in public, and why Jin was here holding a three-year delayed present.

“Good morning,” Jin replied, tightening his chokehold on the teddy.

“I WUV Yydgjgggg” The teddy said in return.

Tachikawa stared at the teddy’s expectant little eyes, before looking up at Jin and asking.

“Do you want to go get coffee?”

**Author's Note:**

> >Konami sent an image  
> >BEAR!!!! BEAR ON WINDOWSILL!!!
> 
> >Tsukimi forwarded an image to "Operatorzzzz"  
> >Kunichika sent an emoji  
> >Kunichika sent an emoji  
> >Kunichika sent an emoji  
> >Kunichika sent a video  
> >Kunichika: Tachikawa-san just RAN out the room


End file.
